


Tell Me I'm Alive

by blak_cat



Category: Carmilla (Web Series)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-05
Updated: 2015-06-05
Packaged: 2018-04-02 22:50:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,682
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4076770
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blak_cat/pseuds/blak_cat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When you find multiple dead bodies at the school newspaper's office there are logistics to be taken care of, but Laura is sick of blood on campus, and cleaning up messes, and being the last to understand what's on Carmilla's mind.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tell Me I'm Alive

_So open up my eyes, and tell me I'm alive, this is never gonna go our way if I'm gonna have to guess what's on your mind..._

\--

Carmilla was making the cocoa for once. In the living room Laura heard sounds of scuffling plates and silverware in the kitchen and the low hum of a burner on the stovetop. Carmilla insisted because Laura didn't know if she could get up but now she was regretting the absence already, curled into herself on the chaise longue, pretending the blanket around her smelled like Carmilla.

It was dumb really, she was only a few meters away but all that blood was sticking and congealing inside Laura's head and she thought of the pit and watching Carmilla fall and all the images of death and destruction and horror on campus were blending together in one thought Laura wanted to be held as long as possible.

LaFontaine and Perry had similar ideas on the floor, surrounding a game of Rummy with cards that looked like they walked out of the 1800s. Carmilla had muttered something about being careful that the cards didn't change suit on them because (apparently) they were wont to do that (of course they were).

"For you," came a low voice and Laura's view of the pair on the ground was replaced with a powder blue mug steaming up the smell of chocolate.

Laura took it gratefully and pulled into her chest as Carmilla moved to retake her seat under the (extremely disturbing) painting.

"No," Laura said and turned red because it sounded childish but she took Carmilla's hand and pulled back.

Carmilla took the hint and dropped down next to her, an arm going around her and legs intermixing and warming the leather underneath.

"LaFontaine one of those 3's is a club," Perry said flatly.

"What? It was a spade when I put it down," they said.

"Told you," Carmilla added.

"Can't even play cards without this place ruining it," LaFontaine said, folding their hand.

Laura had to agree the school felt like a horror movie; they'd hiked across Styria only to be brought right back into a deserted ghost town and somewhere across campus students were lying dead in a dark room and it was cold outside and they'd never be in their warm beds again or in someone's arms drinking hot chocolate.

And it was all Laura's fault.

"We should go bury them," Laura said quietly.

"Bury who?" LaFontaine said.

"The Voice of Silas students, they're out there by themselves and we should—it's the right thing to do, right? We can't just leave them there—"

"Shh…"

Carmilla was hushing in her ear and kissing the side of her head, her arm around Laura's shoulders was firm though, keeping her still.

"Well, L does have a point," they said. "We're probably the only ones who know about it and barring being able to call anyone, we should at least do something about the…the bodies."

There was that particular brand of heavy silence that came with referring to a deceased person as "the body" for the first time. Laura didn't even know those kids and still felt the contents of her stomach grow heavy and sink. Carmilla's hand pulled away from her shoulders.

"I'll do it," Carmilla said, getting up with a slight grunt.

"No, we should all go," Laura said, setting down her cup of cocoa but slender fingers fanned out over her shoulders and gently pushed.

"I'm faster and I see a lot more blood in life than any of you, no need to traumatize anyone further," Carmilla said.

She was walking across the room to slip on a leather jacket, pulling up the hood and zipping it.

"You shouldn't have to do it alone, Carm, I'll go with you," Laura protested, standing now that her shoulders were free.

"I know I don't have to," she said. "Unfortunately, I see to recently be in the habit of doing a lot of things I don't have to."

She was smiling under the hood and even through the self-imposed gloom, Laura managed a small smile back and Carmilla leaned in to kiss her forehead and curly black hair tickled the sides of Laura's face.

"Here," LaFontaine said, handing a small pipette to Carmilla who raised an eyebrow. "Get some samples."

"Are you serious?"

"Yes. We have no idea what attacked them and if it's not human we should probably figure that out fast."

Carmilla sighed and shoved the piece of plastic into the pocket of her jacket and gave a lazy thumbs up.

"You're an honorary scientist now—"

"Please be quiet."

Laura smiled brighter this time and placed a soft kiss on Carmila's nose, straightening her jacket and zipping it just a little higher to keep out the rain and cold, however inconsequential to Carmilla it might be.

"Try to sleep," Carmilla whispered while their faces still mingled.

"Not without you."

Carmilla was out the door into the nighttime rain and Laura padded back into the living room, blanket over her shoulders to a smirking LaFontaine shuffling the card deck and spinning in the computer chair. They looked up Laura when she came back and lifted one hand, cracking an invisible whip and then laughed.

"Is now the time?" Perry asked sharply.

"We might as well try to make the best of this situation and watching a 334 year old killing machine walk off like a dutiful puppy is definitely the best," they said, setting down the cards.

Laura resumed her place on the chaise lounge and tried not to smile obviously because Carmilla hated when Laura encouraged that kind of talk ("No, cupcake, I'm the night"). Did it secretly make Laura completely giddy to have Carmilla wrapped around her finger? Absolutely. What girl didn't want her badass, super-hot girlfriend turned into mushy, romantic goo when no one was looking?

"I'm joking," LaFontaine said. "Half-joking, anyway."

"If you wanted to put it a bit more tactfully I'd say it's incredibly sweet of Carmilla to do these things," Perry said.

"Yeah, throwing yourself into the den of angry god with no way out and offering to bury dead bodies is 'sweet'," they said.

"It's certainly better than 'whipped'."

Laura took a sip of her significantly cooled cocoa and tried to pretend to not be listening LaFontaine and Perry blatantly discuss Carmilla behind her back. Laura also briefly wondered if half the campus played a version of this game back before they left since 90% of her viewers seemed intent on poking fun at the possibility of Carmilla being smitten.

"Personally," Perry said, getting up and walking over to the fireplace. She flipped open the latch and waved her hand around violently when a puff of ash was freed. "I think it's a little bit sad."

"What's sad?"

Perry looked up in surprise, evidently forgetting that Laura was still in the room. Her face turned a light shade of pink and she quickly busied herself with the fireplace and dusting off the floor in front of it.

"Oh nothing," she said, moving across the room to hunt for a box of matches.

"No, why is it sad?" Laura asked, sitting up.

"Well, it's just," Perry said, pulling at the edges of her sweater. "You were never much good at seeing the way she looked at you—"

"Understatement of the semester," LaFontaine said.

"Gee, thanks guys."

Perry struck a match and tossed it onto the pile of wood in the fireplace and used her hand to fan it briskly as the kindling at the base caught. She'd gotten surprisingly good at that over the past few weeks, that is when she was letting them make a fire.

"She looks at you sometimes like she's guilty," Perry said.

"Guilty?" Laura said.

There were plenty of things Carmilla went around looking guilty over, Laura supposed. But she was not her how she fit into any of those categories. At least, not anymore.

"I'm not really sure how to say this without upsetting you," Perry said. "So, I'm just going to go make some tea. Who wants some?"

"Wait, what?"

Laura followed Perry into the kitchen and LaFontaine's footsteps could be heard behind her. Perry was already filling an empty teapot with water and turning a dial on the stove.

"Perry, what are you talking about?" Laura said.

"It's not really my place to talk about it," Perry said. "It's Carmilla's life and your relationship."

"Well you already started, and you might as well finish it before Carmilla gets back is a lot less interested than me…in an aggressive way," Laura said.

"Technically LaFontaine started it."

"Wow, right under the bus, Perr."

"Will you please just say whatever it is."

Perry set down the teapot a little too hard over the burner and turned in a tight huff, playing with the edges of her sweater again and looking down at the tiled ground.

"It's usually when you're asleep or busy typing away on the computer or something but," Perry said. "She looks at you like she feels guilty, and I think she feels guilty…that…she's not human."

To be fair that was a huge anvil of a ball to drop and Laura couldn't blame Perry her evasiveness but it didn't hit Laura like something to immediately shout a denial about and walk away. Instead it felt like Perry confirming something Laura had already known but refused to acknowledge. Because acknowledging it meant the beginning of the end. This line of thought couldn't be stopped, it would race forward until Laura saw Carmilla's future alone on the Earth and her own buried in the ground.

And for that Carmilla carried guilt? It was Laura who should feel guilt, she was the one uprooting Carmilla's life, rearranging her. She didn't physically move the pieces, but Carmilla was changing for a reason and the reason was her. And now Carmilla was despising her existence because of her.

Was there no one on this campus free from the messes Laura created?

Before Perry could immediately take it back or LaFontaine chime in, a loose shutter banged against the kitchen window and LaFontaine jumped to lock it back down. Perry took the interruption as an escape route and immediately began asking who wanted what in their tea and apologizing for only having loose leaf and going on a tirade about how she sterilized all the mugs.

"I'm good," Laura said. "Carm had a point about the whole sleeping thing, so I think I'm just gonna head upstairs."

"Oh, well, goodnight Laura," Perry said. There was a slight squeak and a twitch that told Laura she wanted to say more, perhaps even apologize but she kept her lips in a tight line and Laura took it as a cue to leave.

LaFontaine called a goodbye and Laura headed towards the stairs wondering exactly how long it would take for the two of them to start talking about her.

Up in the room, the bed was big and empty, but Laura laid in it nonetheless because what else could she do? She wasn't getting to sleep and she didn't have Carmilla to talk to or hold or kiss and it felt like a small fraction of an infinity that she would one day be doomed to because how on Earth were they going to make this last?

Stop it.

She was exhausted, she was still in a bit of shock, she was probably hungry. These weren't her real thoughts, they were a stupid voice inside her head that sounded achingly similar to the one that came out of her mouth when the Dean used her as a living puppet.

It was an hour or so later that the door opened carefully and someone slipped into the room. Laura sat up and she knew Carmilla spotted the movement in the dark.

"What are you doing up?" she said.

"I couldn't sleep," Laura said, leaning over and flicking on the lamp. "How did it—how did it…go?"

"They're taken care of," she said. "And I got the bio major their samples. All in a day's work."

"A night's work," Laura corrected.

"It's day for me."

Right. Vampire. Day and night. Nocturnal. Great, awesome. Laura groaned and flopped down into her pillow and Carmilla furrowed her brow at her and frowned from across the room, taking of the jacket. Black as it may be, Laura saw a sticky shine there wasn't present when Carmilla left and she fought down a shudder.

"What's wrong?" she said.

"Nothing."

"Laura."

Carmilla had developed this warning tone quickly after they established that whenever they found land again they'd start dating and that Carmilla absolutely had to delete the number of every one of her "study buddies" and maybe occasionally wear a shirt that said "if found return to Laura."

"You tell me things right?" Laura said. "Like if you're feeling sad or something, you'd tell me right?"

"I have little reason to be sad right now but I suppose, in theory, yes. Why?" she said, coming over to sit on the edge of the bed.

Best not to tell her that Perry had tipped her off. Best for Perry, that is.

"I just want to make sure you know," Laura said, placing her hand of Carmilla's. "You can tell me anything."

"You think I'm not."

It was not a question and Laura tried to not to show it, but she dropped her head and knew Carmilla had already heard her heartbeat jump, if only for a moment, and had her answer.

"I'm in this," Laura said, gesturing to the both of them. "For as long as you'll let me be. And I don't want you to feel alone."

"What makes you think I feel alone?" she said.

"Carm I know you're hyper-aware of what you are. I've seen you pretend to breath and every time we eat dinner you insist on having whatever food we're having even if you're starving and you ct like you're trying to go to sleep when we both know you're just going to go running around somewhere until dawn," Laura said. "And I'm okay with it. You don't have to breath or eat food or have a normal sleep schedule. You can tell me these things."

It was then that Laura caught a glimpse of this mask of guilt Perry referred to because Carmilla's face flashed something that could only be described as human. She dropped her gaze to their meshed hands, where pale met pink, and studied them.

"I'm not very good at making this," she gestured to herself. "Into two."

She pointed to Laura and shrugged. Laura scooted closer.

"It's not that you have to do that, Carm," Laura said. "It's more like we're making two one. If you're hurting then I am too. When you cry I'm the one who gets the runny nose, even if you like to tell me vampires don't cry."

Laura giggled, pressing her forehead into Carmilla's to lighten the mock as Carmilla brushed her fingers through her hair, lightly.

"I cry when you cry," she whispered.

"Now you're getting it."

Laura brought their lips together and sighed into Carmilla's mouth and did her best to make Carmilla's mouth her mouth. Their hands pressed together harder until Laura felt like it was one, her breath replaced Carmilla's phantom one and Carmilla's nearly still heartbeat calmed Laura's own. Their hair touched and mingled, their eyelashes left traces on each other's cheeks.

They kissed until they forget where they were or why, until they forgot what they were. Every brush of Laura's tongue was branding inside Carmilla's mouth _you are so human._ Her hands brushed away the dust from centuries off of Carmilla's skin and her sighs in her ears replaced memories of screams.

Nothing was as it should be and this wasn't their fairytale ending. But they were alone in a world of them, under the covers, under the canopy, and finally, if just for one last moment, allowed to be together before the storm came.

**Author's Note:**

> Just a quick thing I thought about. If you guys have canon (non-AU) prompts for one-shots I'll gladly take them and see if I can't squeeze them in. Thanks friends!


End file.
